The Ethics of Home Economy
by hell-whim
Summary: "House-guest" is being charitable. Every morning Britta reminds herself: this is temporary. Like they only ever were. Jeff/Britta (Season 3 AU)
1. Accident

**Summary:** _House-guest_ is being charitable. Every morning Britta reminds herself: this is temporary. Like they only ever were. (Season 3 AU)

**Author's Notes:** I seem to be one of those _Community_ fans who is doing it wrong: I didn't like Season 3, especially the direction Britta's character took or the way the group treated her. Although some canon events will be referenced up to "Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism", assume this fic takes a sharp left in early November.

* * *

**Accident**

Britta's not surprised at being ignored. It's two in the morning in the middle of a blizzard, and the waiting room behind her breathes and sweats and coughs as one huge, germy, parka-clad mass. The triage nurse doesn't even listen to what she says, simply thrusting a clipboard beneath her nose and ordering her to the back of the line.

Her weapons are limited: ducky pajama pants, a baggy red turtleneck, a pair of faded Birkenstocks over neon orange socks. Her hair is pressed down flat beneath a black wool cap, and she's pretty sure half her face is marked with red lines from the pillow.

"Um, there's a mistake," she tells the nurse. "I got a call. I'm here to pick someone up?"

"Who?" says the nurse, scratching his patchy mustache.

"Jeff Winger?"

Rich finds her in the crowd—she sees the brief mirage of a banana as he reintroduces himself, smiling way too wide.

"I hope this is okay," he says, leading her past a corridor of dark, curtained rooms. "You were the first actual name in his phone, and Greendale's closed."

"Yeah, it's—whatever," she says. The yawn wins out over the sigh. "What happened? How come you're here?"

"Just the right place at the right time, I guess," Rich grins. "I saw the accident happen and called the paramedics."

Jeff's room is at the end of the hall, the only light after the nurses' station. He is awake, sort of.

"Hey, Britta!" he slurs, lifting his arm and immediately tangling his IV and pulse monitor. "What's up, buddy?"

She suppresses a laugh.

"Hey, hey, buddy, come here."

She obliges, taking one of his wandering hands while Rich fixes the lines. Despite an inability to focus, Jeff's serious gaze manages to find hers once or twice.

"Tell me the truth," he says gravely. "How is my face?"

Swollen is the first thing she thinks: skin reddish with marks that will become ugly bruises tomorrow, and tiny cuts spiraling from his nose to just beneath his hairline.

"It...looks fine. Great, even."

"Liar," he accuses, and his eyes well up. "I'm ugly now."

"That's the Vicodin," Rich assures her.

She gently sets Jeff's hand back beneath the blanket and takes the chair Rich offers. Jeff's left leg is wrapped in a blue cast from the knee down, and his toes curl weakly.

"It's just a simple fracture," Rich explains. "He'll have it off in a few weeks, and that bruising should clear right up."

"I'm sure he'll find that comforting. When can we go?"

"Are you sure it's not an inconvenience? I mean, he _could_ stay with me for tonight."

Britta just stares, willing her irritation to manifest as powerful eye lasers which could burn Rich to the ground.

"No," she says shortly. "I'm already here, awake, in the middle of the night. He can stay at my place."

"What about my place?" Jeff says, trying to wiggle his eyebrows suggestively. He ends up in the neighborhood of nauseous and brings an unsteady hand to his mouth.

"Elevators are for the weak, remember? And you live on the fourth floor."

She dozes off while Rich expedites an exit, but comes to just in time to keep Jeff from a painful face-plant. He's too tall to use her as a crutch, so she trails behind with a bag of his bloodied clothes spilling from her purse. The long, cold walk to her car is punctuated by inane pottery chatter. Rich helps Jeff fold into her backseat and produces a shovel so suddenly Britta can only assume it was hiding up his ass. She presses her blanched fingers to the vents as he cheerily tunnels them to the edge of the parking lot.

Jeff has sobered considerably when they reach her place. He pulls himself out of the car and up the curb without complaint, but his face is pale and his lips are pressed thin beneath a sheen of sweat.

"Sorry, sorry," she mutters, struggling with her keys. He shakes his head in weak protest and leans heavily against the wall. The door clatters open at last, and he pushes past her for the bathroom. It's just as frigid and disordered as when she left three hours ago. Her cats uncurl from beneath the blankets and mewl for food as she counts out Jeff's painkillers and fills the kettle.

"Wash your hands," she reminds him through the door. "Are you hungry?"

He looks only slightly better on his return and sits shakily at her table.

"No," he says. "Just sleepy. I'll take the couch."

"I don't have enough blankets," she confesses. "I sleep in the nest."

She gestures, and he turns—the mess of pillows and blankets spread in front of the TV is deliberate, sort of, a semicircle of crappy quilts and linty wool into which the cats have dug small hollows.

"Still?"

"Food or heat. I put the mattress under there this year."

Britta sets out the cat food while Jeff arranges the nest. He gives up on pulling the blanket over his exposed toes and leans his head back to watch her rush around upside down. It's five o'clock.

"Come sleep," he says. "I'll buy you breakfast before class."

"It's still Sunday, Jeff."

"Even better. We'll sleep in."

He stretches out a hand as she flits back and forth behind the couch, collecting the scattered essentials.

"Hurry. I'm losing residual heat."

"Just go to sleep, Jeff. I'll stop by your place and get you some clothes."

"Aren't you going to sleep?"

She grimaces into the bathroom mirror.

"I've got work in an hour. Look, I'm gonna take a shower. I'll try to be quiet."

She takes ten minutes—shampoo only, shaves just her underarms, and washes her face with hand soap. She's more likely to frost than air dry, so she towels her skin bright red and winces as she pulls on the nondescript uniform that bags up under her breasts and pinches her hips.

Jeff wakes himself with effort on her reemergence.

"When'll you get back?"

"Um, later, I guess?"

She combs her hair with still-damp fingers in the microwave's reflection.

"You'll be fine, Jeff. Just sleep."

Her job is an hour's drive, and she's one of three that made it. Ten hours of cleaning rooms and sanitizing dishes and shuffling trash down endless corridors, listening quietly to her radio, hunched, face hidden by a slowly loosening braid. At lunch she sits alone, picking at a brown salad. The TV is a blur, so she squints, but it's the expected apocalypse montage: monumental snowfall, record cold, interstate salted, plows stuck in parking lots.

She writes up a brief log for Rosa (_creeper in 204, third's empty, watch the windows downstairs_), and shuffles into her coat at four.

She can't really remember the drive back, but she makes it, somehow, waking up in her usual spot, which is cleared of snow by some miracle—or by Carlos, who waves from his front window as she trudges inside. She has no mail, as usual, and struggles again with her keys.

"Lemme get it!"

A crash, a thud, and a desperate clawing at the knob—she opens the door to find Jeff clinging onto the other side, grinning and unfocused.

"Jesus, Jeff, did you hit the car with your face?"

"Very funny."

She helps him back to the couch and the imprint he's made over the day of discarded blankets and cracker crumbs. He's down to just boxers, skin dull and oily, and his hair flops tragically across his forehead.

"You stink," she says, sloughing off her coat and her painful shoes. "Did you eat?"

"Sort of."

"Crackers do not count."

"That's racist."

The familiar sights and sounds hit her all at once: bloodshot eyes, lazy half-smile, sated murmur, slow giggling.

"I swear to god, if all you left me are stems and seeds—"

She finds the empty bag hanging from the banana hook.

"You are a dead man, Winger."

"I'm sor-_ry_," he whines. "I woke up and took more painkiller and then threw up and couldn't eat and then I found your sugar bowl..."

"And only ate crackers."

She closes her face in both hands, breathing bleach and fruity air freshener.

"I have no food here. And I forgot to get your stuff."

"I really am sorry."

She opens her eyes and claps her hands once—something learned from her mother, a borrowed mnemonic which sends a brief spark of clarity down her spine.

"Okay. We'll get delivery, and I'll go to your place tomorrow after class. I might have some stuff here you can wear."

There's no _might_ about it. She heads for her closet and the stash of his clothes from last year: some sweaters and shirts, underwear, a pair of artfully destroyed jeans. She even has one of his shoes tucked beneath her bed. He's mildly suspicious when she presents him with a plain white tshirt and blue boxers, but it's tamped down by sudden embarrassment.

"You don't have to do this," he mutters as she helps him to his feet, leads him to the bathroom, and sets him on the closed toilet.

"This is for me," she assures him. "You smell _really_ bad."

He laughs, but still drapes a towel awkwardly over his lap before slipping out of his shorts. Britta finds a trash bag for his cast and bends down to tie it on.

"I think I can manage that part," he says sharply. She releases the bag and steps away, shoving her hands into her uniform pockets.

"Don't use all my shampoo," she warns and leaves him to it.

There's no reason to wait until the water's on, but she does, dialing only after she hears the whine of the shower. Chris answers on the second ring.

"Thank you for calling China House. How may I help you?"

"It's Britta."

"The usual?"

"Yeah. Extra mushrooms."

"_Already_? Fuck, Britta. Just...you know, do some fucking yoga or get a hobby or something."

"I had an unexpected house-guest, okay? And I actually want extra mushrooms, too."

"Fine. Give me forty. It's a fucking blizzard, you know?"

"I _know_," she says, but he's already hung up.

So next she fixes herself: carving clean pajamas from the ice cave that swallowed her bedroom, shaking out the nest, rearranging pillows, washing her face at the kitchen sink. She can't remember if Jeff ever took this long before, and feels stupid for standing at the door, listening through the crack.

"I'm okay," he calls. "Just a second."

She listens until she's satisfied that he's at least made it over the rim of the tub, and then retreats to the less stable of her two dining chairs. Jeff shuffles out, awkwardly juggling his crutches and a wet towel. She pretends to look up from a magazine lying open on the table.

"So," he says bracingly. "How was your day?"

"Just fine," she replies. "Yours?"

"Hazy."

She helps him into the other chair and returns the towel to the bathroom. Jeff is picking at the bag when she turns back.

"I tied it too tight," he pouts, and she frees him with an eye roll. "I would've gotten it."

"Uh-huh."

"_Eventually_."

A knock interrupts them.

"Fuck it's fucking cold!" Chris sings tunelessly. "So come open the fuck up!"

He brings along a flurry of snow, but their combined weight forces the door shut. Chris dusts himself off, shaking the bag.

"Ring, ring, dinner's here. Big romantic—"

He catches sight of Jeff, and his face wrinkles in disgust.

"You again," he says. "Thought you were done with this one, Britta."

"Yeah, I missed you, too."

"Your face is all fucked up."

"Be nice," Britta cuts in, reaching for her wallet. "What's the damage?"

"What do you have?"

Two twenties, a five, and a smattering of singles. It must show on her face, because Chris sighs.

"I'll spot you two weeks," he says. "_Two weeks_. That's it. Just give me twenty for the register."

"Thanks," Britta says quietly.

"Fucking mooch," he replies with affection. "Don't fuck him too hard. You'll break the other leg."

"Never nice to see you!" Jeff says, waving as Chris leaves.

While she deals with the plates and utensils, he sorts the food, spicing each container with his usual dismissive humor.

"Shut up, Jeff," she says. "Just eat your food. You're not puking in the nest."

She sets the carton of steamed mushrooms between two open textbooks, pulling her hair back into the usual loose braid. Jeff has arranged his food into quarters, sauce running in neat canals between oddly even portions of rice and vegetables. They each take a few bites before he breaks the silence. Compulsion, Britta thinks.

"So what, we're not going to have an awkward dinner conversation?"

She glances at him warily.

"Did we used to?"

"No, but there's no need to cling to tradition."

His weight shifts to both elbows, as he leans across the table.

"_Abnormal Psychology_ by Thomas F. Oltmanns."

"That's what the title page says," Britta confirms shortly, taking her notebook from beneath his reaching hands.

"How's it going, by the way? You never seem to talk about it."

"It's..."

She quickly chews and swallows a mouthful, frowning.

"It's fine. It's going fine."

He nods, looking back to his plate.

"It's not what I thought it was going to be," she offers hesitantly.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I want to help people, but psych's mostly research, and it turns out there's not a whole lot you can do without a PhD and..."

She shrugs, chancing quick glances up at Jeff's face, but he remains absorbed in the chop suey, picking across the valleys of his plate with chopsticks. He'd tried teaching her how to use them last year, but she could never get a grip on anything.

"So switch majors again."

"_Again_," Britta repeats. "Yeah, the group would love that. _Well, Britta sucks at psychology—now she can go fail at something else. Maybe pre-med. Then she can kill somebody!_"

"Definitely not an impressionist," Jeff says with a short laugh. "You really care what they think?"

"Um, _you_ care. Why shouldn't I?"

But that's as deep as Jeff goes: he shovels the rest of his food into his mouth and retreats without ever looking up. He turns on public access to cover the silence and commentates the county board meeting with forced enthusiasm. When Britta gives up on her book, he makes a space for her under the blankets, and she hates how easily she fits beneath his arm.

They fall asleep like that, almost the way they used to, though she's careful of his leg. Jeff twists around her like an old cocoon, and the effort of extracting herself the next morning isn't worth the reward. She makes coffee and eats toast while leaning against the fridge, watching him.

Even in sleep he's guarded, gathering the blankets over his head and beneath his chin. The cats dig uselessly at the corners and huff, twitching their tails over his closed face. Britta scoops them away from his feet and then drags herself to the shower.

When she's done and dressed, he's awake at the table, shaking out her new supply onto a stretch of old newspaper.

"Is this going to become a problem?" she sighs. He's found the rolling papers as well and arranges the buds with ridiculous precision.

"Just one," he says. "You have no idea how shit I feel right now."

"_Half_," she warns, splitting the load over his protest and sweeping the rest back into the bag. "You want some toast?"

"In a minute."

He's a little conciliatory after lighting up.

"I'll let you have most," he nearly begs, passing the joint for a plate and a coffee mug. "I'm sorry. It just helps."

"It's okay. Just might have to ration it for awhile."

He's not in the mood for another day of convalescence, and of course the campus is open, so she borrows a pair of sweatpants from Carlos while Jeff's in the shower and then helps pull a few oversized socks onto his cast.

"It's not perfect," he grimaces, and then, off her look, "But it's better than nothing."

She makes him wait inside while she pulls the car around, and then gets out to open the door for him. He holds the crutches between his knees and hunches towards the heater while she clears a path through the snow.

"Isn't this a little early?" he whines, wincing as she slides in. "Wasn't it just October?"

"I guess."

They get to campus around ten, just in time for group, and Jeff struggles with the steps up to the library, breathing heavy. She stops with him at the top, hand hovering at his elbow, like she'd be able to stop it if he fell. His face _does_ look all fucked-up, like Chris said, worse in the snow's reflected glare. Britta, unthinking, slips her fingers out of the gloves and sets her bare hand on Jeff's swollen cheek.

"My forehead's not that big, right?" he says, eyes closing, leaning into her hand.

"You might be up to a four-point-five," Britta replies lightly. "You okay? I could take you back."

"It's fine."

But he doesn't pull away, sighing instead, and she warms her hands against his skin.

When they get inside, she says nothing, helping him out of his jacket and folding it over her arm. His wallet and pills are already at the bottom of her bag.

Friends can touch each other, she thinks. Best friends probably touch each other's faces. She can use Troy and Abed as an excuse, at least.

They reach the study room and are immediately swarmed. Jeff deflects, and Britta kicks herself for not calling ahead.

"What happened?" the group asks, as a unit. Jeff tells the story in three sentences.

"I'm okay. _Really_. Britta's taking care of me."

She takes her seat and doesn't look up for the rest of the meeting—she can imagine their synchronized judgment just fine.

When the group is done and disperses, Shirley walks them to Jeff's class, chattering, arm linked with Britta's.

"I'll find you for lunch," Britta tells him just outside the door. "You okay for pain?"

"I'll text you, just in case," he says. "Least the phone survived the crash, right?"

"I'm still surprised it wasn't the first thing you asked about."

"Hey, this is the money-maker," he says, pointing to his swollen face, and disappears into the room.

Britta smiles, turns, and walks smack into Shirley's frown.

"Sweetie, what are you _doing_ to yourself?"

Britta sighs, taking Shirley's arm again, steering her back across campus, towards their own class.

"Being a good friend. You don't have to say it, you know."

"Mmm-hmm."

"I'm a big girl, Shirley. I know what I'm doing."

"Oh, like you knew last time? When he was just using you like a welcome mat, all the while throwing himself at other women?"

"That's not what happened," Britta says sternly. "I was going after other guys, too. Anyway, we're just friends now. And this isn't permanent, anyway."


	2. Routine

**Routine**

Britta, as it turns out, is also bad at predictions: within a few days she and Jeff have settled into an oddly comfortable schedule, of school and sleep and three meals a day. Shirley walks with them to morning classes, then Troy and Annie follow them to lunch, where Rich sometimes appears, with homemade soup and advice about Jeff's leg and outlook. Abed hovers around uncertainly, and when school is over, Britta drives Jeff back to her place. She cooks dinner, and Jeff talks at her, and then they fall asleep watching too-early Christmas specials. Every six hours, she gives him exactly one pain pill.

She has enough money by Thursday to settle with Chris, and it's time for Jeff's refill anyway, so they hit up China House on the way to the pharmacy. Jeff waits on a bench just inside the door, crutches between his knees, watching her.

"No paper trails," Chris says, waving away her checkbook.

"Relax. I brought cash."

He takes his time counting it up, each and every single, like she's ever shorted him before.

"What the fuck are you doing with this loser again, Britta?" Chris asks, voice low, rifling through the register so he doesn't have to meet her eyes.

She's not sure what to be offended by at first, sputtering.

"He's not—I'm not—We're not together. We never were."

Chris almost laughs, pointing to a corner booth across the room.

"Every weekend, for a year, table to yourselves. You eat, you bitch about school, you fight. Then you talk yourselves into going back to one or the other's place. What the fuck would you call that? He treated you like shit, Britta. But that's just _my_ fucking observation."

She's too quiet in the car and knows it, and maybe Jeff knows it, too, but he's not saying anything either. She flexes her fingers over the steering wheel, fighting down whatever's trying to push up out of her throat.

Like he said, just his observation. That doesn't make it true. But she can't help flashing back to Halloween, to Annie's stupid fucking story, and how easy it was to tell that the vampire's passive slave was supposed to be _her_ because everyone was looking and so she had to keep calm, keep it together, pretend to be observing their behavior for psychotic breaks.

"Drivin' kinda close to the curb, there."

"Sorry," Britta says, snapping out of it. "Didn't mean to give you any _Rambo_ flashbacks."

"Well, look at you, getting references correct for once."

"Shut up, Jeff."

They make it to the weekend without incident, and Friday night is errand night. First is Jeff's apartment, because she has run out of his leftovers from the year-they-never and laundry day isn't until Tuesday.

The church across the street from his building is packed for some reason, but they luck out on a delivery guy leaving, taking his space just outside the building's doors. Jeff is determined to reach his floor but gets winded halfway up the first flight. She leaves him there, continuing on alone, because she knows exactly what he wants anyway.

His apartment is so much warmer than hers, and she leans against the door a little longer than necessary, soaking in something to take along when she leaves. She heads back down with two duffels, his backpack, and his precious toiletry safe tucked under her arm. Jeff makes some noise about helping when she reaches the bottom floor, but he can't do much more than fumble with her key and turn on the heat.

They don't talk much on the trip to the medical thrift store. Jeff stares longingly at the wheelchairs while Britta haggles for his boot, and then he slumps on a discounted couch at Goodwill as she's shuffling through the racks.

"If I cut up any of your jeans, you'll murder me in my sleep," she says. "It's just temporary, Jeff."

So next is the grocery store, where Jeff hobbles along in silence, and Britta grips the cart with numb fingers. She doesn't have to think too hard about what to get them, and that scares her a little: she knows exactly what kind of non-sugar sweetener Jeff likes in his coffee, and how many apples they'll eat in a week, and what vegan cheese Jeff will stomach without making a face. It's all so suffocatingly familiar.

They stop just long enough to collect the police report and then head back to her place, where Jeff sprawls in front of the TV, reading while Britta knits, arranging the blankets equally between them.

"No insurance," he mutters. "It wasn't even his car, either. And his license was revoked four months ago."

"What about your insurance?"

"Liability only."

Jeff sighs, dropping his head back. The report collapses onto his chest, and one of the cats seizes the opportunity to curl against his stomach.

"Hey, Bojangles."

"Her name is _Lucretia_."

"She looks like a Bojangles."

Britta rolls her eyes, needles flashing in the TV's reflection.

"What are you making, anyway? That's way too big to be Thunder's replacement eye patch."

"Please stop re-naming my cats."

He shrugs, scratching behind Lucretia's ears. Britta disentangles herself and crawls to the bottom of the nest, flipping the blanket back from Jeff's foot.

"Sock," she says, stretching the end of the knitted tube over his exposed toes and up to the top of the cast. "I'll stuff the bottom with some leftover scraps of fleece, and it'll fit good under the boot. I got it a little big, just in case."

She smiles at him and then quickly resumes her place under the blankets. She can feel Jeff staring.

"Have you thought about social work?"

"What?"

"You know, what you were saying the other day. How you're unhappy in psych."

"I didn't say I was unhappy."

He concentrates on the cat.

"Sometimes I had to deal with caseworkers, for my clients. A lot of them didn't have more than a four-year. I think it'd be a good fit for you."

And then he's finished, again, disappearing back into the police report.

The pattern is just so many steps from being familiar. Usually by now she'd be distracting herself with sex—after one disastrous attempt at something like a relationship, ruined so easily by Annie and that stupid fucking purple pen, Britta had shut up and accepted it and decided yeah, okay, maybe what they had wasn't really worth working out anyway.

She should be furious, but it's exactly what she's learned to expect from him. She keeps reminding herself to remember he could leave at any moment.

Because he will. He's always looking for an angle, for a way out, marking exits with breadcrumbs and big fucking neon signs and one day she's going to look up and find nothing at all. She's got him figured out. It can't hurt if she knows it's coming.

By the second week, Jeff's gotten pretty good with the crutches and the boot, but every once in a while he shifts wrong and his whole face washes that awful grey, and then Britta's asserting herself into the men's room, cool hand over his forehead, damp paper towel across the back of his neck. More than once she has to write apologetic emails to their professors for missing class—he sends her texts consisting of little more than a sad face followed by _help_, and she knows it's time to take him home.

Not _home_, she corrects herself, damp hands twisting beneath the dryer, as Jeff staggers out from one of the stalls.

"This is bullshit," he says. "On TV, broken legs are a one-episode source of hilarity, quickly mended by a fade cut."

She gives him a half-smile.

"I'll go get the car."

Despite his episode, Jeff wants to go out, and buys them dinner at somewhere a little nicer than they can probably afford—not that she's thinking of finances as _theirs_, as something combined.

He winks at the waitress and orders for them both, and Britta sips her wine and thinks that it doesn't matter how little it meant to him when they were over, how fast he seemed to go for Annie, because at least they seem to talk more than they used to. He smiles, because he's telling a story, and she nods at herself—they're friends, _best friends_, and when it gets really bad he's the first to jump in and defend her, so of course she climbs out of bed at three in the morning to pick him up at the ER.

She wants to ask if this is what he thinks too, if they've moved up past the friend level where he occasionally cat-sits to the friend level where he's just there in her thoughts when she's not looking, as he swings along behind her. But she just holds the door for him and says nothing, because Jeff doesn't talk. At least, not all at once, or in a logical order, or like she's supposed to follow the conversation. He tries, but he has limits, and she pushed them once. Now she's just happy with what they've got.

She wonders, sometimes, if maybe Abed's got it figured out yet.

"You're a wild card, Britta," he says, making a frame of his thumbs and index fingers.

"What does that mean?"

They're packed elbow-to-elbow in the cafeteria booth, except for Jeff's cast, which gets its own chair. He's busy with his phone, one arm stretched along the seat-back behind her.

"Well, everyone in the group seems to have a set role. But it's hard to label you."

"I'll take that as a compliment on my refusal to assimilate."

"We've been over this," Jeff says, deliberately distracted. "She's the anti-Winger."

She studiously avoids Shirley's look and finds herself locking eyes with Annie. It feels a little like staring down a viper, and Britta can't look away.

The weekend sneaks up on her. She picks up some extra shifts at work because those parking tickets aren't going to pay themselves and her car is making that weird rattle again. Her alone time with Jeff is limited, thankfully, so there's no chance to ask the worst possible question.

She stumbles back through Sunday's fog to find Jeff at the kitchen table, snowed in paperwork, head in hands. He doesn't look up when she struggles inside, so it must be bad.

"Fuck," he says.

"Hey."

"I'm fucked. Totally, completely."

"What's up?"

"Hospital bill came."

"And all you've got is dental," she says, remembering, and then shrugs off her coat, inexplicably annoyed with herself.

"My lease is almost up, and my car is totaled, and next semester's tuition is due. I'm gonna need to do some serious groveling."

"That might work," Britta yawns, shoes off, unbuttoning her shirt. "You give good grovel."

Jeff collapses onto the table with a sigh, arms hanging off either edge.

"I'm the kind of client I used to dream about."

She's half in the bathroom, digging her PJs out of the hamper.

"Well, don't worry so much. I'm not kicking you out. Least not until you're back on your feet."

She glances.

"Figuratively."

Eye contact is quick—she turns back to the mirror, yanking her hair into position.

"Thanks," Jeff says, very quietly.

She can't sleep at all that night, shrinking away from Jeff's arm when he rolls over and captures her in a sleep-hug.

_Of course_ this is the decision she makes. She is thirty-one, and three semesters away from finally not fucking something up, and she's welcoming Jeff back in like the doormat she's always been. Panic wells up inside her.

So maybe psych isn't exactly what she thought it was going to be, and the steady job and okay apartment still don't mean safety or a full stomach, and maybe she goes to school every day and tries to help and her friends laugh at her and use her name to mean _big fucking mistake_ and even random strangers, it seems, are catching on to the _Britta is the worst_ meme, but it's okay. It's okay.

Britta breathes: she's thirty-one. She's three semesters away from not fucking up. She's got a budget built on spreadsheets and all of her cats are alive and she's finally figured out her hair and soon enough she'll be a real adult with furniture and a 401K and maybe she could tough it out for five or six years for the PhD, or maybe she'll be able to do something with just a bachelor's. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

"You look kinda...dead," Jeff says the next morning. She gave up on sleep around four, got up, studied, and made toast at six to wake him.

"I'm fine. I feel fine."

They slug it through the day together, and make no mention of their new arrangement. Not that it's—

Britta thunks her head on the steering wheel a couple of times, but snaps up quick when Jeff slides in.

"We good?"

"Great."

Shirley is not impressed.

"What am I supposed to do?"

"Send his ass to a motel."

"He can't afford a motel."

"Andre found a place that was fifteen-dollars-a-day when he first left. And anyway, since when is that _your_ problem?"

She can only meet Shirley's eyes in the reflection.

"I'm gonna go back to peeing alone."

Shirley doesn't soften the way Britta was expecting.

"I'm looking out for you."

"Thanks, but I'm good."

She can't even make a dramatic exit—the dispenser's out of towels, so she has to stand by the dryer, but at least uses the noise to drown Shirley out.

Jeff is waiting on the couches outside, running through cellular reproduction with Pierce.

"So," he says, grinning, as she slides down beside him. "Guess what we get to do tonight."

"_Not that_," Britta says to Pierce, before he can even open his mouth. She doesn't look at Jeff. "What do we get to do?"

"Turn up the heat."

He means literally—almost making a ceremony of twisting the thermostat, while she's wrapped up in a blanket at the edge of the nest.

"I called Ted today," Jeff explains, hobbling down beside her. "He's got some consulting work to throw my way."

"Which means?"

"I won't be a mooch forever."

He shrugs, looking away, so she flicks on the TV to cover his embarrassment.

"It's not a lot. But after my bills, I'll have a little left over every month. Figured this was the least I could do."

They keep to the nest that night, just in case, and wake up sweaty. It's almost luxurious.

Jeff showers first, then makes pancakes while Britta's occupied with her hair. Syrup, coffee, supply gathering. Everything fits in her bag.

She helps him pull the sock up over his cast.

"Thanks for the neutral coloring," he says, as they strap on the boot together.

"I know you have an aesthetic."

"And it's already so difficult to maintain this perfection."

They're on Pierce duty for the day, so it's just barely sunrise when they squeeze into the car and huddle together over the vents.

"Still November, right?" Jeff says, pointing to the still-uncleared snowdrifts.

"Apparently."

"Hey, it's almost break."

Jeff laughs.

"No class after Wednesday."

She nods, not because she's forgotten, but because he requires response.

"Three weeks down," he says, because he can't let silence linger, tapping the top of his cast. "Three to go."

"We'll see," Britta says around the lump in her throat.


	3. Evasion

**Notes: **This fic has a soundtrack/mix available at my tumbr: hlwim [/post/47907547356/bite-your-tongue-a-jeff-britta- fanmix]. Thanks everyone for reading!

* * *

**Evasion**

By the end of the week, they're back to having sex again, and it happens like this:

The study group's Thanksgiving is scheduled for Saturday, because Andre's sister is hosting the whole family, Troy and Annie have been invited to Abed's, and Pierce just wants to get drunk. Britta would rather shoot herself in the kidney than be anywhere near a road on Black Friday, so Thursday morning they move the last of Jeff's stuff out of his place and into hers, and suddenly it's _theirs_, but there's no way she's saying that out loud.

All of his food's about to go bad, so she lets him cook up bacon and hamburgers on her stove, in her pans, grudgingly eating a salad within his view.

"It's already dead," Jeff says, like this is some life-changing argument she's never heard before. "It's _disrespectful_ to waste the sacrifice."

"You are an awful person."

Alone, she disassembles the nest and drags her mattress back into the bedroom. Jeff's end-table takes up the empty space on the left side, his hand-weights stack up beneath the TV, and his DVDs find haphazard shelter among her alphabetized collection. What couldn't fit has found space in the basement storage unit that she's never used but still gets charged for every month. She gives up half her closet for his pressed pants and color-arranged shirts and sweaters. His tie rack fits neatly over the bathroom door.

The cats are shocked by the sudden abundance of new things and space, and so spend the afternoon tearing around each other like kittens. Britta takes one corner of the couch, while Jeff leans up against her, cast balanced along the length of the cushions.

The evolution is natural, after a few hours of stillness, that Jeff suddenly sits up and shifts around and one of his arms is around her shoulder and the other one turns her head towards him and then she's kissing him, like instinct. The _Charlie Brown_ special comes on, and he's unbuttoning her jeans, warm fingers sliding over her belly and down, and the first touch is electric as always—she jolts and moans and pulls him a little closer, hands fisted in his shirt.

His eyes stay closed the whole time, because he knows what he's doing, doesn't even have to ask—two fingers slip inside her, his thumb presses down hard and—  
"Fuck," she says into his neck, and feels the muscles move around his smirk.

"We're getting there," he breathes, and all she wants is to bite down. This is the part he was always good at.

His hands have a decent memory—in a few minutes she's gone boneless, slumped against his chest, gasping raggedly. It's hard to stand but necessary so she can peel off her pants and underwear while Jeff wrestles with himself.

It's so familiar—and so _good—_as she sinks down, fumbling with numb hands to guide him in, and he says everything they're both thinking.

"_Finally_."

Jeff helps some, hands drifting from her waist to brace her thighs, but at first she just gently rocks her hips against him. He chokes a little, kissing down her neck, fingers twisting apart the buttons on her shirt. She's grateful when the heat kicks on—goosebumps erupting across her chest, chased by his lips and tongue.

He always gets lazy with her bra, but she doesn't help him this time, focused instead on disrupting his rhythm, making him moan and shake beneath her.

This is a new angle for them. Jeff's a top, in every sense, too obsessed with control to try anything new he didn't come up with himself—not that Britta had minded all that much. Sex was always relaxation, for her, melting beneath Jeff's steady hands and firm lips. Besides, it'd be a shame if he did all those sit-ups for nothing. But this time, this time she leans back and grinds and twists and pulls away and slides back down again, as rough as she likes.

"Britta—"

His tongue darts out, flicking each corner of his mouth, and she snaps back down to kiss him, meaning to bruise a little.

"Britta, _wait_, I'm—I'm close, _really_ close—"

"Am I going too fast for you?"

She has to laugh a little, that anything so simple could send him over the edge. Jeff collapses back into the cushions, and Britta leans into him, forehead resting on his shoulders, working her arms between his back and the couch. She can feel when he opens his eyes, when the panic travels up from his toes.

"Relax," she says, curling up closer in his lap. "I've got it covered."

They don't talk about it. They keep the TV on and take off most of their clothes and go a few more rounds on the couch before moving to the bed. Jeff tries to take control only once, but his leg gives out under pressure and then she's force-feeding him soup so he won't throw up the Vicodin again.

It's a meal break then, sometime around midnight, as Jeff eats and Britta lights up a joint, wearing one of Jeff's shirts half-buttoned and nothing else.

"This doesn't count as part of the rent," Britta says, dousing the match in a nearby glass of water.

"Please," Jeff replies, staring down into the soup. "I have _some_ dignity."

Friday is a haze—they sleep, they shower, they eat, they get high, they have sex. Right around three, Britta suddenly remembers responsibility.

"Cookies," Jeff says, as she buttons up his shirt and searches under the bed for clean underwear. He gestures to his naked body when she stands. "You're leaving _this_ to go make cookies?"

She wants to make a crack about his lack of prowess—but his hair's a mess, and he's got that nice layer of stubble and those eyes and then he bites his lower lip a little, oh-so-gently, and it's all she can manage to squeak out, "Yeah?"

Eventually he joins her—or rather, he trudges out to the couch and flips on _Judge Judy_ and watches her sideways, leaning off the back of the couch. He's put on pants, but she shoots down his suggestion for Chinese.

"I need to use this knowledge somehow."

"What knowledge?"

"We all thought you had some dirty-white-dude-with-dreads vegan baker on the side."

"And now," Britta says with an eyeroll, "my darkest secret is revealed."

The oven beeps—preheated, way quicker than she expected, and the spatula's disappeared again.

"Why do you keep this stuff from us?"

"Baking is Shirley's thing."

"And we're limited to one baker per group?"

She pinches her finger closing the silverware drawer and swears.

"I also knit," she snaps, "and can dance the most popular moves of the 1930s and speak semi-fluent French and some sign language and kick anyone's ass at checkers."

Jeff grins.

"Well, you're almost a real person."

She throws him a look, but it falls flat against that smirk.

"You _know_ why I don't tell them," she says, turning back to the mixing bowl, sucking on her throbbing finger. "It's just fuel for all the shit they give me. _Britta's a man-eating feminazi, so she must hate all traditionally feminine things_."

"I think that's more about _you_ than them."

But now she's made herself mad, and just wants him to shut up.

"Hey, I looked into social work. Like you said. Greendale doesn't offer it."

But he surprises her, with a little sincere smile.

"Yeah, I know, I looked, too. But there's some Masters programs in Denver. Those only take two years, and they accept a lot of majors. Could try sociology, turn psych into a minor."

She's staring, so he looks away.

"I think it'd be a good fit. For you. You're good at helping people."

She hates it when he's nice, because there's always an angle, so while she waits for the cookies to cool, she distracts him with sex. It works, of course, because Jeff is easy and so is she.

She suddenly starts thinking about Annie halfway through, which is just wrong on too many different levels, so she bites her lip and sets her hands on his shoulders and tries to concentrate. Jeff's not bad by any means, but he's got a limited arsenal of tricks from this position, and the banished thoughts return with ruthless zeal.

She has the courtesy to wait until he's finished before asking.

"So, are you and Annie doing...things?"

"What?"

He's foggier than usual, which she knows is just his dedicated effort to avoid answering.

"You and Annie," she says, slowly. "Is there something going on?"

_Like last year_ is on the tip of her tongue, but she actually wants this conversation to go somewhere.

"You mean, like this?"

He gestures in the general direction of their joined bodies, and she smacks his shoulder.

"Yeah, moron," she says. "Like _this_."

He sighs, he sputters, he shifts her off and away.

"No," he finally says, annoyed. "We're not doing anything."

She regrets asking, because now neither of them are asleep but they're definitely not going to talk, so they each face opposite walls and try to keep their breathing even until morning.

Okay, okay, it was _exactly_ the answer she'd been expecting, then. She can't get angry or even annoyed. Jeff is Jeff and will always be distant, and she sort of got used to it last year. And, _okay_, maybe she was warming him up a little and maybe they would've gone somewhere if that stupid fucking purple pen hadn't been in their way and maybe if frogs had wings they wouldn't bump their asses when they hop.

She almost laughs but stifles it at the last second, because that was _so_ her mother, and Britta's spent way too long suppressing that to go back now.

Shirley's expecting them at two, which means they'd better reach her house by noon, so they roll up out of bed together at ten.

This is different, Britta tells herself, as she watches the coffee drip and listens to the shower running. This is different. They're best friends now, and she knows the limits and knows what she's getting into and how to get out, if she wants—not that she _will_ want out, not that she's thinking of this as already over.

Jeff turns on the TV while she's in the bathroom, and she can hear his off-key singing through the door. He's completely presentable when she finally emerges—hair artfully mussed, shirt pressed and fur-free, sleeves rolled neatly to his elbows, sock and boot already strapped over the cast, sport coat folded neatly over the back of a chair. He hands her a plate of toast, vegan-buttered, and offers her a sip of his coffee.

"No milk, I promise," he says. "You look nice."

"Not so bad yourself."

They're both wearing blue.

She has the car running a while before they both shrug into coats—she helps him wind the scarf around a few times and threatens him with earmuffs. His crutches take the backseat, and he holds the cookies on his lap.

It's 12:15 when they arrive, and she rings the doorbell. They still somehow manage to be the last ones arriving.

"Look who's finally here!" Shirley calls over her shoulder, taking the cookie platter from Britta's numb hands. Something like _hey_ drifts down the hall. Andre appears to take coats and scarves and gloves, and they are lead down to the living room, where Elijah and Troy share the couch as Abed and Jordan show Pierce how to cheat at some racing game.

Britta makes sure Jeff is settled—Andre's got a recliner waiting, and she can tell Jeff's already chafing at the attention.

"Beer?"

"Ooh, Mother may I?"

"Tomato juice it is, smart-ass."

He raises an eyebrow towards the kids, but no one says anything.

Annie's sitting in the kitchen with Shirley, and they both look up when Britta enters.

"I love your hair," Shirley says.

"Beer?"

"Andre's got it."

Which is code for Britta to stay and join the bonding session, so she resigns herself to grinning and goes to wash her hands.

"So how was your Thanksgiving?"

"Just wonderful," Shirley says. "Ben said _turkey_."

"Cute."

She means it, but hardly sounds it. Annie says nothing, slicing olives into a bowl.

"How about you?" Britta says. "How was Abed's?"

"Fine. Fun."

Shirley sets a spoon and a bowl of something in Britta's waiting hands.

"Stir, please," she says, with that mothering smile. With a quick shake of her head, Britta manages to toss her loose braid over her shoulder and crosses to the island. The whole kitchen smells warm, like cinnamon and cranberries. Someone must be winning that video game—the boys shout and cheer distantly, through the door.

"What about you?" Annie says, a little sharp. She's looking down, at her working hands. "Do anything fun?"

"Just Jeff," Britta says, and then freezes. "I mean, Jeff and I—"

Annie's looking up at least, while Shirley does that ridiculous face-half-turned thing, where Britta knows she's listening hard and doesn't want to show it. Britta looks down into her bowl—she's mixing dough for biscuits, and it's getting harder and harder to move her arm, to drag the spoon in circles.

"Jeff and I," she tries again, but swallows it. _Jeff and I_ are different, are unexplainable, are none of anyone's business at all anyway, but Britta doesn't stop, just keeps stirring and stirring and stirring.

"Jeff and I are sort of back together again."

Annie blinks.

"Oh."

"_Oh_," Shirley echoes, in a register only dogs can really hear, "so you sat down and talked it out and decided to start dating again after moving in together?"

Her instinct is just to tell Shirley to fuck off, but that's too mean and she's not so instead Britta's mouth snaps shut around "_Yes_."

"Oh, well that's nice! Annie—"

She twirls around, still in _that_ tone. Britta frowns at the bowl.

"—would you go tell the boys that supper's almost ready?"

"Sure."

Being left alone with Shirley is about the last thing Britta wants right now, but she's sure as hell not asking Annie to stay. Shirley takes her time, too, buttering the cooking sheet and setting out a wire rack and grabbing the bowl with flour-doused hands and handing Britta the spoon to put in the sink and—

"It's not like before," Britta says. "Not this time. I know the limits and what I want and what he wants, and I won't get hurt this time. I know what I'm getting into. I know I get stupid about these things sometimes, but I promise, I'm not _this_ stupid."

Shirley sighs, spooning the dough into rolls.

"Okay," she says quietly.

The biscuits take ten minutes, which is about how long Annie needs to herd everyone into the dining room. Britta helps Shirley set the food out and gives Jeff a tight smile when she sits down beside him.

"Gotta work on our stealth," he whispers, midway through the meal. "Abed had it figured out in five minutes."

"I generally try not to comment on story-lines that don't directly involve me," Abed says from across the table, "but I'm worried about rehashing old plots. That generally only works in sitcoms, if the writers can give it a good twist."

"Well, what if we're in a soap opera?"

That turns out to be enough of a distraction to get them through dinner. Troy and Abed run down a list of genres, casting each person into the appropriate character type. Britta tries to ignore the roles they keep assigning her.

They stay for the after-dinner entertainment features a viewing of the ultra-rare Thanksgiving-themed _Kickpuncher: Devastation_, and Britta sits stiff in Jeff's half-embrace, arms crossed, pushing herself back into the couch cushions. Everyone is glued to the screen, but she still feels watched.

Annie, Abed, and Troy leave first, and then Pierce follows. Guilt forces Britta to stay and help with the dishes while Andre puts Ben to bed and Jeff sits at the island with a glass of Scotch.

"You look at lot better."

"It's the face," Jeff says, shrugging. "Bruises are finally gone, swelling's down. Still got a scar, though."

He traces a faint white line running down his temple.

"Oh, I didn't even notice."

"You will now," Britta says. "It's all _I_ can see anymore."

Jeff glares, and she laughs, and Shirley smiles a little. Britta turns back to the sink and feels a little snap. Her necklace—gold locket, an old gift from her Nana—plops into the soapy water.

"Oh, no," she says, scooping it out and delicately setting it onto the towel Shirley offers.

"What happened?"

"The clasp broke."

Jeff wobbles over to examine it. His hand is so much bigger than hers.

"We'll get it fixed," he says, carefully coiling the chain and slipping the necklace in his jacket.

The ride home is quiet—they're only sort of sleepy, but it's comfortable. There's nothing to say.

She makes tea, and Jeff finds something passably entertaining on PBS, and then she brings over a blanket for them to share.

"We should get cable," Jeff says quietly, offhand, as Britta lets herself settle against him, lets his arm pull her in, draped across her back, lets her head find its place on his shoulder.

She twists up a little to meet his eyes and then he's smiling at her and all at once Britta realizes: yes, she is_ this_ stupid. His fingers thread through her hair, and _yes_, she's falling again and she's just smart enough to know it'll hurt like hell when she lands.

But for right now, she says nothing. She leans into his shoulder and shares his smile and watches the ground rush up from below.


End file.
